


No time to discourse

by Lilliburlero



Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian, Henry V - Shakespeare
Genre: Crossover, Ficlet, Gen, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 01:04:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2562407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilliburlero/pseuds/Lilliburlero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An undated fragment from the Maturin papers reveals Stephen's impatience with a military passenger, apparently shipped as an unofficial courtesy aboard an unidentified ship.</p><p>Source: National Library of Ireland, Maturin papers, box 8, MS 27/512</p><p>*</p><p>Content advisory: homophobia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No time to discourse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reconditarmonia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reconditarmonia/gifts).



By Christ, it is insupportable. I have reached the utmost bound of my toleration for this army officer, this shatter-pated Welshman, Capt. L―(1): voluble, credulous and sententious, he tries my patience more than any man I have ever had the misfortune to meet. The alternative to sharing a ship with him is drowning, the prospect of which holds more relish than it did before our Cymric passenger joined at Algeciras, but still astonishingly little―how the human organism clings to life in the most sordid and humiliating circumstances!―but share my quarters with him I can no more, I must speak to JA, who of course  likeshim, or finds him amusing. I hope, I suspect in vain, that JA will not be prompted to expound upon the passion of Celts and the phlegm of Englishmen and pray Our Lady I may keep my temper. 

That time of my life is passed at which I should have asked a friend to wait upon Capt. L― for his remarks concerning my Nation. Notwithstanding their exceeding simplicity, his reflexions were not quite  untrue, but they skirted perilously close to impugning my loyalty, and shall not be forgotten.

If I am not mistaken, he is of Marshall’s mould and of his precise tastes as well―his partiality for JA is very great, and it vexes me as Marshall’s never did. Why this should be so, when JA’s innocency of it is complete, I cannot conceive. One man, whom I like rather than not, harbours an―shall I write  unnatural? my observations of Nature give me the lie―lust for my nearest friend; another, whom I detest, the same (my friend being indifferent to both alike): for the first I feel only a mild pity, for the second something I hesitate to―but must―name as jealousy. What this discovers of my own feelings I confess I fear to own.

(1) unidentified.

**Author's Note:**

> Title: _Henry V_ , III, ii.
> 
> The non-specificity of this fragment is attributable to my urgent need to review O'Brian canon, for which I hope I am forgiven.


End file.
